Ranko: Okay, let's make this quick guys!
Yami: Why?
Yuugi: Yeah, what's the rush?
Ranko: I have homework to work on!
Yami: Oh…
Ranko: (holds up list) I am so happy about all the reviews but since I am getting more each chapter I can't answer all of them, only the ones that ask questions or concerns. Sorry, but I still appreciate all the reviews I get!
AnimexXxGoddess: Yeah, your screen name is cool! It took me forever to come of with Ranko twin when I joined this site (Yami: Fail). And I know what you mean, sometimes when I read a story, I have to turn away from it and try to compose myself, most of the time it's puzzleshipping fics. Aibou, what Yami calls Yuugi in the Japanese version, means partner but in modern Japan it's slang for gay (Yuugi: Uh). Mou hitori no boku, what Yuugi calls Yami, basically means other me. Thanks for the review!
hikari no senshi17: Thanks for the suggestion!
Dinogirl: I almost had Mai agree to Yami's deal, that would have taken the story in another direction. But at the last second I decided not to. Also, what you said about Yami not being able to touch Yuugi I thought, "Oh crap" I didn't follow the rules of my own story! Oh no! But anyway, yeah, let's go with what you said. Yes, there will be a sequel! I can't wait! Because the Forbidden Game books are a trilogy, so…yeah. It will have dark puzzleshipping and all that fun stuff X3. Thanks for the review!
Inspiration's Wonderer: Thanks for the review and confidence boost! Fear not, Ryou shall be saved in this chapter! Kinda…you'll see what I mean when you read it.
Ranko: Heads up!
Yami: (looks up) What?
Yuugi: Spoiler alert!
Ranko: For those of you who have read the Forbidden Game books, I've stolen Summer's nightmare for this chapter and Ryou's Summer…won't say anymore.
Yami: (yawns) Ranko twin doesn't own anything! Do we really have to repeat this all the time?
Ranko: Yes! Enjoy!
-/-
The steadily growing group of friends walked down the hall of mirrors, no one uttering a single word. Then, the sound of weeping broke the silence. Everyone stopped and listened carefully, their ears straining to hear where the sound was coming from. Yuugi eyes widened and he sucked in a sharp breath. "That's Ryou!" he cried. He took of running around the next corner.
"Yuugi! Wait!" Mai called out, running after him. When she came around the next corner, with the rest of the group behind her, they found Yuugi crouching beside a crying Ryou. The white haired boy was curled up in a tight ball, his face hidden in his arms and his tiny frame wracking with sobs. He was huddled against a door much like the one to Seto's nightmare, with the red button and blue light.
Yuugi put a comforting hand on the boy's shaking shoulder. "Ryou?" he asked softly. Ryou's body froze and he peaked up from his arms at Yuugi.
He looked up fully with wide eyes and sniffled. "I-is is really you, Yuugi?" he asked.
Yuugi nodded and smiled sweetly. Malik approached Ryou and crouched down next to Yuugi.
Ryou's eyes flickered towards Malik and his doe eyes swam with fresh tears. "Really, really you?"
Yuugi put his arms around the boy's shoulders and pulled him into a hug. "Yes, Ryou. We're here."
"I-I've been alone for so long. I kept seeing myself and o-other people…and…" Ryou whimpered into Yuugi's shoulder.
"Who've you seen, Ryou?" Malik asked, rubbing the boy's back soothingly.
"Uh, s-sometimes Bakura and sometimes…h-him. He scares me Yuugi!" Ryou cried harder, getting Yuugi's shirt wet.
"Him?" Yuugi asked softly. "Him, who?"
"A-Akefia," Ryou responded quietly, as if speaking his name was taboo.
Malik 'tsk'-ed. "That must be the Shadow Man that looks like Bakura," he said more to himself than everyone else.
Yuugi patted Ryou's back. "Well, there's nothing to be afraid of now, we're here. We'll protect you." Ryou sniffled. "And we'll find Bakura too."
Ryou lifted his head from Yuugi's shoulder and managed a watery smile.
"Poor little guy," Honda cooed. "It must be your nightmare next."
Everyone shot Honda a look; even Seto shook his head in disappointment.
"Nice going, jackass," Malik muttered.
They explained the nightmares to Ryou and everything that happened to them so far. They explained everything they had to do and the time limit. Ryou wasn't as disturbed as Yuugi thought he would be.
"Anything to get out of here," Ryou commented as Malik helped his to his feet.
"I know what you mean, can someone say claustrophobia?" Malik asked.
"Claustrophobia," Honda responded slightly.
Malik punched Honda in the gut. Everyone shook their heads and walked towards the elevator door. Yuugi had his finger hovering over the red button; he turned toward Ryou as he approached. "Any chance that you want to tell us what your nightmare is before we open it?"
Ryou blushed and twiddled his thumbs. "It was a messy room."
Silence followed.
"A…messy room?" Honda asked. "Oh the horror!"
Malik punched him in the gut again.
"No, really Ryou, its best if you tell us now," Anzu said.
"But I—" Ryou began but was cut off by Yuugi.
"Don't worry, Ryou, you don't have to tell us your nightmare if your not comfortable with it. We'll deal with it when we get there," Yuugi said helpfully.
Ryou sighed.
Yuugi pressed the button and the door slid open revealing a messy room.
"You see!" Rou cried in frustration.
It was Ryou's room. Ever since Yuugi had known Ryou, his room, no, his whole house, has been messy It was always cluttered and you could never see any of the art that decorated the house. Ryou's mom and sister passed away when Ryou was only a child. Ryou's father was an archeologist so he was always traveling, leaving Ryou in their apartment to live alone. And cleaning was not Ryou's forte, so he usually left the house in disarray. The only time the house ever got cleaned was when Bakura would come over, surprisingly; the man was a neat freak.
Ryou's bedroom always collected the most clutter. You could never his hand made quilt or tie-dyed curtains because there was always something hanging on it or piled up in front of it. But in this room, Yuugi couldn't even see the bed. There was a small patch of open space in front of the closet, but that was about it.
"Wow," Malik tried to maintain his shock but it was hard. He grew up with Ishizu as a sister; everything always had to be orderly and square.
Honda giggled.
Yuugi sighed, not nearly as amused. "Alright, everybody, let's go in. I guess we just have to clean it up, there must be a door somewhere along the far walls."
Honda groaned. "I hate cleaning!" Anzu took Honda by the ear and dragged him into the room.
They all squeezed into the space between the closet and the piles. The door slid shut behind them and vanished.
Honda shuddered. "Can someone say claustrophobia?"
"Claustrophobia," Malik said. Honda threw the blond a look.
Anzu whistled. "This is one messy room. Ryou, how can you live like this?"
Ryou huffed and threw his arms up in defeat. "My real room isn't this bad. This is my nightmare!"
"Well, why this kind of nightmare?" Anzu asked, her tone not softening.
"My sister used to tease me about my room being so messy and when our grandmother came to visit she nearly passed out from the sight of my room," Ryou said, his eyes filling with fresh tears.
Yuugi lightly jabbed Anzu with his elbow. "Don't make him feel bad," he whispered. "Okay, let's try and clear a path around the edges and check every wall for a door."
Everyone took on different tasks to help clean the room. Yuugi couldn't believe how much junk had accumulated in Ryou's room. Piles of clothes, year old magazines, food everywhere, mismatched shoes, pens and pencils alike, musty towels, and anything else that might take up space all piled high.
Anzu squealed and jumped back. "Oh my, God! Spiders! Ryou, haven't you ever heard of Raid?"
Ryou shrugged. "I believe in live and let live."
It really was a nightmare of some sorts—a nightmare of tedium. But they were making progress. Mai and Malik were working with vigor and Kaiba was working with fastidious precision. Honda was trying to look like he was working and Anzu was too busy dancing around any spider she saw.
Yuugi sighed and shook his head. He picked up a box of odds and ends and underneath looked like a pressed flower. But it had the wrong shape. Yuugi looked more closely at it and…oh God. It was a dead mouse. Yuugi bit his bottom lip to keep from squealing like a girl. He went a surprising shade of green and shuddered.
Malik noticed the mouse too and scraped it up with an old calendar and threw it into the closet before Anzu could see it.
The trash seemed to be growing and it was getting worse. The stuff they found was not something you would find in a bedroom, more in a dump. No one was smiling anymore.
Mai picked up an old Easter basket and paused. An awful smell was coming from it. She used one long finger to move aside the cellophane grass and her face convulsed. Inside the basket was a solid mass of white, writhing maggots.
"God!" she cried. In one fluid motion she threw it at the closet door and scattered a shower of white. Honda shouted in surprise and bolted. Anzu and Ryou shrieked and this time, so did Yuugi.
"Uh, Ryou, what exactly did your sister tease you about?" Yuugi asked.
"Oh, um, she said that things were growing in it. She said it looked like an earthquake hit it. That it would attract bugs and that someday someone will go in it and never come out," Ryou reported with wide eyes, getting as far away from the closet as possible.
Seto's eyes widened and slowly nodded his head. "Uh-huh."
Mai took in a shaky breath and let it out slowly. "And just what kind of nightmare do you have about it?" she asked.
Ryou looked at Mai and bit his lower lip to keep it from trembling. "Oh, uh—it's like, first I hear a scratching noise and then I look and see cockroaches the size of sneakers. And then I see stuff on the floor, fungus, like, a column of fungus, but it has a mouth and it's howling. Howling fungus."
Everyone was staring at Ryou with wide eyes and a few stray tears fell down Ryou's cheeks. "I-it may not sound scary but it was. It was the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life."
Red lights went off in Yuugi's head. He looked around and noticed everyone frozen in place, from fear or shock, Yuugi couldn't tell. "It sounds pretty scary to me," he commented. "Come on guys, we have to get moving."
"I-I think your right," Honda said, and began to clean with more energy.
They ran out of room in the closet and now they were just throwing things in front of them behind them, like making a tunnel. The trash got grosser and scarier the deeper they got, Yuugi refused to touch some of the things he found with his hands; he wore t-shirts like oven mitts so he wouldn't have to.
Then came the bugs.
First, it was a noise, a scraping and scratching noise. Yuugi stiffened and turned slowly.
A cockroach, flat and brown, but it was huge. It was much bigger than Yuugi's foot. It crawled out of the floor vent and made a strange clicking sound with its back legs. One more, then two more followed the first one. Ryou shrieked and pointed a shaky finger at them.
Yuugi reached for a water glass to revive him and then quickly snatched his hand back. Crickets, and a lot of them, were piled on top of each other in the water glass; there were so many that some were falling over the rim. Their antennas twitched and Yuugi shuddered, imaging feeling all those legs and antennas on his skin, crawling all over him.
Smaller roaches crawled out of a discarded candy box and other bugs of a different size crushed the delicate paper cups as they came squirming out.
Ryou was so white that there were blue patches under his eyes.
Iridescent green beetles the size of footballs climbed the walls and moths the size of small kites clung onto the ceiling.
"Come on, Ryou, help us!" Mai called, panic clear in her voice as everyone raked through the trash. Disturbed ants swarmed out of it, forming thick trails over the debris. Even Malik and Seto were freaking out at this point.
Ryou didn't move, he just stared at a beetle, too terrified to move.
The ground began to rock beneath Yuugi's feet. At first, he thought it was because of the garbage shifting. Then he remembered what Ryou said: "She said it looked like an earthquake hit it."
"Oh no," he breathed. "We have to hurry!" Yuugi yelled the same time Mai did. "Go, go!"
They were clawing through the garbage, tearing just enough away from the wall to look for the door. They climbed on the smaller mounds, wading through them.
The ground shook again.
"Hurry!" Yuugi yelled. "Hurry, hurry!" It seemed like he couldn't yell loud enough.
The towering pile of rubbish quaked.
Everyone was working frantically, even Honda and Anzu, only Ryou was rooted in horror.
"The door!" Malik yelled, pointing. Yuugi's head snapped up and he felt relief flood in; he saw the rectangular molding of the door.
"It opens in!" Seto called. "We have to move all this out of the way first!"
They all climbed over each other, ripping through the garbage. A cockroach crawled onto Yuugi's legs and he kicked it away without stopping his work. He would scream later.
The room shook again and Yuugi looked up and gasped; there were ominous cracks in the ceiling. Mai and Malik cleared away the last of the trash away from the door the same moment.
With a thankful sobbed, Yuugi helped pull it open. Then he looked back at the room.
It wasn't a room anymore, it was hell.
There were huge cracks in the floor with monstrous, mutant bugs crawling out. The ceiling was buckling and the plaster was falling down. The moths, now disturbed, were flying around the room. And growing among the mess was something Yuugi didn't recognize, and something he didn't want to.
Honda and Anzu stumbled out of the room and into the hall of mirrors. Seto and Malik exchanged looks and nodded; they followed the pair out of the room. Mai held the door open for Yuugi. Yuugi could barely hear Mai yell, "Come on!" over the rumbling as the room began to shake again.
"Ryou, come on!" Yuugi yelled desperately.
Ryou turned towards the voice, and looked at Yuugi with blind brown eyes. He took a step towards Yuugi.
One of the growths stood up, blocking Ryou's path. It was a column of fungus. Something opened wide at the top of the fungus and made a strange gurgling, screaming sound. Howling fungus.
The other growths straightened as well and made the God-awful noise that made the blood run cold. They doubled, tripled, and blocked Ryou's path. He shrieked and stumbled back towards the closet.
"Ryou, no! Come back!" Yuugi yelled, his throat tightening.
The ground heaved and the garbage that they had cleared to make a path was again covered up. The mutant bugs skittered toward Ryou and the fungus howled. Ryou's shrieks became full-throated screams.
"Ryou!" Yuugi cried. Adrenaline kicked in and Yuugi plunged into the garbage, trying to climb it.
"Yuugi! Help me!" Ryou called from somewhere in the garbage.
"Yuugi!" Mai called. "Come back!"
But Yuugi didn't hear his cousin call for him. He searched the garbage for Ryou but couldn't see him. His eyes filled with tears and everything became blurry. Ryou's screams were fading.
"Yuugi, I can't hold the door!"
Ryou! Where are you? Yuugi continued to search.
And then the screams stopped.
Everything froze for a second.
No noise, no rumbling, no movement.
Nothing.
"Ryou!" Yuugi shrieked at the top of his lungs as the howling started up again.
The rumbling started again.
Yuugi was about to dive into the heart of the mess but Mai grabbed her cousin's arm and pulled him backwards.
"It's going to come down!"
"No—we have to get Ryou!" Yuugi cried, still screaming Ryou's name. Tears fell freely down his face now.
"We can't get anybody! Come on!"
"No—Ryou!" Yuugi shrieked, turning again.
Mai ducked and caught Yuugi by his waist. Yuugi found himself flying over Mai's shoulder and out the door; he was caught by Malik and Seto. Through the open door, Yuugi saw the ceiling collapse. His mouth opened in a soundless scream. Mai leaped out and fell beside them.
Then the door slammed shut as the toppling piles fell against it.
Yuugi stared, unblinking ahead of him.
There was no words spoken, it was silent, so silent that they all heard a ringing in their ears. The only sound made was their harsh breathing.
"Look," Honda breathed.
The door was disappearing.
Yuugi shook his head frantically and hopped to his feet. "No, no, no, no, no!" He ran towards the door and threw himself against it, trying to pull it open, but it wouldn't budge. "No!" There was no more door, just a mirrored wall.
Yuugi almost screamed in fright when he saw a boy about his height in a ragged state and staring at him frantically. Then he realized that boy was him.
He saw everyone else in the mirror, all looking worse for wear.
"When Malik was late coming out of Anzu's nightmare, the door didn't disappear. It stayed there—but…this time…" Yuugi whispered, afraid to finish the sentence.
"God," Malik breathed out.
No one dared to say the words, except Seto.
"He's dead."
Yuugi clenched his eyes shut and fisted his hands. He shook his head and whispered. "It's not fair. He never hurt anybody."
There was silence in the room, then Yuugi punched the mirror wall. Everyone jumped in surprise, Yuugi was never violent about anything. Yuugi was crying, tears falling down his face at a steady rate; he couldn't breath properly. The mirror had cracked under Yuugi's fist but it immediately fixed itself.
"It's not fair! It's not fair, damn you!" Yuugi cried out in frustration. "He didn't deserve it! It's not fair!"
"Yuugi, it's okay, calm down," Mai spoke soothingly in Yuugi's ear. They were all trying to hold him. He realized he wasn't in control of himself. He was trembling violently and his throat was raw from screaming.
As suddenly as it came, the hysterical energy came crashing down and it took Yuugi with it. He fell to his knees on the floor and wrapped his arms around his body to stop the shaking.
He felt arms wrap around his shoulder, trying to comfort him.
"It's okay," Mai said, stroking his hair like she did when they were children. "It's okay to be upset."
No, they didn't understand. It was Yuugi's fault. He got them into this mess; Yami wanted him, not anyone else. If he had kissed Yami in the Little Red Riding Hood nightmare, he could have gotten Ryou out.
A piece of paper fluttered down and on it was a drawing of a messy room. In black sharpie, a big X marked the picture.
As if to mock Yuugi, a clock struck two.
-/-
Ranko: No! Ryou!
Yami: You're the one who killed him off, you shouldn't be crying!
Ranko: That's how it happened in the story! Anyway, where's Yuugi?
Yami: He's in another room, crying.
Ranko: Oh…anyway, I'm sorry that I killed off Ryou, but that's how it went in the Forbidden Games and I am trying to make this as close as it can possibly be without it being classified as copyright!
Yami: Pretend the last five seconds never happened in your life…
Ranko: It took me forever to write Ryou's nightmare, I was freaking out! I hate anything with more than four legs. I mean, can you imagine a centipede, with all those little tiny legs crawling up your arm?
Yami: Ranko! Stop freaking the readers out!
Ranko: Woops…okay, so next chapter has Bakura and some awesome angst! I have completely forgotten about Bakura so that's why you haven't seen much of him in this story. Also, next chapter I'm kinda going off script a little bit so it might take longer.
Yami: If you guys have any ideas for Bakura's nightmare let us know in your review. Now, I have to go comfort Yuugi. (leaves)
Ranko: Personally, this was my favorite chapter. Make sure to review and tell me what you think!